Entries in Mythbusters: Misinformation
(14)

A devastating blow for “Gender Theory”: the Nordic Council of Ministers (a regional inter-governmental co-operation consisting of Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and Iceland) has decided to close down the NIKK Nordic Gender Institute. The NIKK had been the flagship of “Gender Theory”, providing the “scientific” basis for social and educational policies that, from the 1970s onward, had transformed the Nordic countries to become the most “gender sensitive” societies in the world.

The decision was made after the Norwegian State Television had broadcasted a television documentary in which the hopelessly unscientific character of the NIKK and its research was exposed.

The Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency (EOWA) has issued a media release claiming that Australian workplaces discriminate against women because of an average gender wage difference between male and female graduates of $2,000. The source data cited actually found this difference was not due to discrimination but due to the fields of study chosen by males and females, along with other factors such as hours worked and type and location of employer.

Here is a copy of the media release along with our letter to the director of the EOWA in response.

The White Ribbon Foundation is an organisation that works to prevent male violence towards women – a goal that is extremely worthy and worth supporting. The White Ribbon website states that “all forms of violence are unacceptable,” however in 2009 the organisation issued a document to it’s male Ambassadors which used erroneous ‘facts and statistics’ to downplay, diminish and report incorrectly about male victims of violence. These Ambassadors use federal government funding to take the White Ribbon message into regional, rural and remote communities. These significant errors could have led the Ambassadors, and through them the general public via federal funding, to be misled about the nature and dynamics of interpersonal violence in Australia.

Some of the dangerous myths about violence circulated in the document include claims that men are less likely than women to experience violence within family and other relationships; that we don’t yet know the impact of violence on men’s overall health; and that there is no evidence that male victims are less likely to report domestic violence than are female victims.

"The facts are clear," said Attorney General Eric Holder. "Intimate partner homicide is the leading cause of death for African-American women ages 15 to 45." That's a horrifying statistic, and it would be a shocking reflection of the state of the black family, and American society generally, if it were true. But it isn't true. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Justice Department's own Bureau of Justice Statistics, the leading causes of death for African-American women between the ages 15–45 are cancer, heart disease, unintentional injuries such as car accidents, and HIV disease. Homicide comes in fifth — and includes murders by strangers. In 2006 (the latest year for which full statistics are available), several hundred African-American women died from intimate partner homicide — each one a tragedy and an outrage, but far fewer than the approximately 6,800 women who died of the other leading causes.

A coalition of domestic violence researchers, counsellors, psychologists and
men's health workers has
asked the Minister for Women Kate Ellis to investigate the possible misuse
of Federal anti-violence funding by the White Ribbon Foundation. The Foundation has been allocated $1 million over 4 years to help their White
Ribbon Ambassadors work in regional, rural and remote communities - particularly
in high schools - to influence the change of attitudes and behaviours that
perpetuate violence against women in Australian society. The Ambassadors have been sent a resource document by the Foundation titled "What about the men? White Ribbon, men and violence" containing numerous serious statistical errors and unreferenced claims about gender and violence which downplay the incidence and impacts of violence upon men and boys. (A complete and fully referenced three-page list of the errors can be found at bit.ly/wrd10).